2010 - 2011

Sunday January 2, 2011, e-mail from a skater named Eric, visiting from Kansas. Eric wrote:

Hey,

Just returned from a little vacation to Toronto to play some shinny and just hang out around the city.

Where I live in Kansas, I can get about 45 minutes of ice time per week, so it is a fun break to head up there and get a few hours per day.

I figured I've found your website so helpful, that i would run through our week and report on the rinks we visited.

Buttonwood, 4:30pm: We dropped by the rink about 5pm to find it completely empty, with a worker just cleaning the ice. He said he had been to four rinks and Buttonwood had the best ice of any of them due to the unseasonably warm weather the last few days. He scraped and flooded the ice and a large family showed up to play shinny as he was finishing with three adults and three kids. After an hour or so, a number of older teens and young adults arrived until around 7pm when there were about 25 players. They seemed to be regular visitors. The rink was nice, however, one side is a cement pad (like many of the rinks, apparently) and pucks lost to the cement demand some gymnastics to avoid damaging skate blades.